You guys are so closed minded and I disagree will every thing you said.
1. People will buy the iPad pro for what it can do and how it benefits them. While the iPad Air 2 is much more affordable if they want an iPad pro for what it can do they will get it regardless of it being almost double the price. It's about what the iPad pro can do better than the other smaller iPads that matter.
2. iPads have proper keyboards for typing. Where do you magically pull a 30% or less for the time they will spend typing on the device? Sketching apps are far from the only apps that this device appeals to. Reading and writing apps will be a huge deal on this. Being able to read full pages without crop or full pages side by side in two apps open at the same time. Or reading a text book and taking notes at the same time. So many possibilities!
3. iCloud storage comes with 5gigs free and if that isn't enough people can pay for more storage. One dollar for 50 gigs a month. Every year since the introduction of iCloud the service gets better and better. There is now iCloud Drive for better management and sharing of documents and files.
So here is my recap. You are closed minded if you cannot see past the fact that drawing isn't the only good use for this device. Keyboards on iPads have been great for years and the iPad pro will have even better keyboards to type on with better connectivity using the new connection port. Most people won't mind paying one dollar a month for 50gigs once they understand what it is for and how it benefits them by having all their content saved and synced via iCloud. The iPad pro will outlast other current iPads simply because it is way more powerful and will be able to receive more future updates than the rest. It is simply more capable. There is no need for another working computer on the side for most tasks people do. It isn't a small group of people that will purchase the iPad pro, it's just a different group of people. The sales will be through the roof with this one. I see how this can benefit me more than my iPad mini and more than a standard sized iPad so I'll be picking my iPad pro up on launch day.
It's a bit odd to call me closed minded but you haven't mentioned a single reason to recommend the iPad Pro to someone as a primary device (an EDC, if you will), as Tim Cook suggests. I think the closed minded are those who can't think critically and can't apply basic economic principles to the information before them.
To address you counterpoints:
1. People will buy a product if it is priced correctly and it addresses a need or want they have. That's a broad and basic truth. I'm arguing the iPad Pro, as it exists today, is priced way too high and thus fails the first part of that truth. The iPad Pro can do some things better than an Air2. Are those improvements worth ~$300 more, or 30-50% more depending on configuration? What else can that $300 more buy, in the general computing space? In this present case, that $300 more (in the $1000+ category) brings a buyer into a while other tier of products. The value proposition of the iPad Pro becomes a really difficult sell. Rather than saying the iPad Pro does everything most people do today, the question is
does the iPad Pro do everything most people do today better than similarly priced alternatives? I think the answer is no, it does not.
2. I got the 30% from personal and professional experience. Yes, the iPad can have a keyboard. But in nearly every instance (including the Surface line of products), a tablet paired with a keyboard is heavier and thicker than a similarly priced laptop, and almost always the keyboard is of worse quality. The proper bluetooth keyboards with full-size keys are not portable. The Logitech K810 in my opinion is the closest you can get to a Macbook quality keyboard for a tablet. People always say the benefit is choosing when you want a keyboard and when you want a tablet only, and that is a very valid point. The question is
at what point is the quality of the keyboard in a mobile environment important enough to a user that it is better to have an attached proper keyboard (a laptop)? If someone uses a keyboard only 10% of the time, then it's clearly not an important-enough function to have it attached at all times. If someone uses a keyboard 50% of the time, I would say it's a very major part of someone's work or usage, and they should probably go with a laptop. Most students, for example, use a keyboard in far more than 50% of their tasks. The 30% isn't magic, it's just a back of the napkin educated guess, and the number will vary for everyone. But everyone has an answer to the question above, and that answer I believe will steer most people willing to spend $1000+ to a laptop rather than the iPad Pro. The only people who will be steering towards the iPad Pro are the ones for whom stylus input is more important than keyboard input. That just isn't a whole lot of people today.
3. All iPads, big and small, pretty much require either another computer for syncing and backing up or require a iCloud subscription. Assuming, as Tim Cook suggests, the iPad should replace someones primary computer. How many files does a person keep that they do not want to lose? I have about 10GB of photos from my high school, college, graduate program, and relatively short professional career - people who have kids today probably have at least double or triple that, if not more. How about documents? Every document, powerpoint, excel, schematic, drawing, design, render, etc., every file people just want to have. If those aren't kept on another computer, where do you keep those things? Surely not on the iPad itself, as it is easily broken (and once broken, files cannot be recovered). Do you expect these people to pay $1-$10/month in perpetuity to store that stuff? I think most people don't want to commit to paying a monthly fee forever, even a low one, just to keep all their stuff. A USB hard drive is so cheap, yet totally incompatible with any iPad. Add that to the fact that even cloud storage is not immune from errors, having a proper backup is thus important. How do you backup the files on iCloud using only an iPad Pro? Realistically, people's primary computer, the computer where they keep their files that they want to actually keep for a long time, will probably not be an iPad. Not as the iPad exists today, anyway.
I'm glad you're getting an iPad Pro. I hope you like it. It's surely going to be a fantastic device. Because it's priced like a laptop, it's not a good value proposition for most people.
